Thinking about high school, it seemed like one long slog of endless sitting still, wrestling with numbers in math and physics and dates in history - and then they let you out in the open air to do some thrashing around and clear your head - like, say football - they run you around a bit, and then they start stuffing a whole new set of numbers at you.

That's why I liked swimming as a sport. I got "my letter" (do they still do that?) all four years in swimming. It was simple: they'd point to the water and you'd go and do your body-water thing. You could work like hell, and you couldn't hear them yelling at you, none of all those numbers could penetrate the water, and you could do your breathe-sing-swim-dream thing as long as your strength held out or someone grabbed you by the hair when you made a turn.

In high school years, two hours of peace and solitude a day was worth a lot.